Sustainability Technology & The Evolution of Smart Cities

Smart Kitchen Garden

Global population is increasing, with more people moving to cities and more consumerism overall. This has grown demand for food, which in turn has led to the use of pesticides and other technologies to maximize yields. The impacts of this are tremendous on human health, leading to cancers and other diseases. Furthermore, food demands across the world are increasingly supplied from all corners of the world. The global transport and trade of food is extremely inefficient and requires significant energy and water consumption.

Technology:

Niwa is a high-tech indoor garden gadget that allows people to grow food form their own home. This addresses both the issue of pesticides and the issue of transporting crops across the world, which requires energy and water.

The device has a hydroponic base that use mineral solutions instead of soil. It allows you to plant and grow a small vegetable crop with the help of an integrated fan, lights and sprinklers.

The only manual requirement is for the person to choose which seed to “plant” and then drop them into the base. The rest of the “growing” process fully automated as sensors allow regulation of the humidity and temperature to foster perfect growing conditions.

Technology launched through a Kickstarter campaign but is not ready yet to be shipped. However, it can already be pre-ordered. More funds should be collected by pitching to investors to ensure that it can be commercial soon.

In the meantime, those funds should also be allocated to enhancing the marketing of the product through social media and advertisements in cities (e.g. subways). Should pay health-conscious celebrities who can endorse the products.

Begin shipping the product to those who have preordered, open the online store and find retailers to sell to.

4 thoughts on “Smart Kitchen Garden”

This is an interesting concept. I was completely unaware that crows could be trained in this way. The main concern is the ethical implications of making other species pick up litter including potential damaging substances, such a cigarettes. The deployment of this may be challenged by animal rights groups.

Niwa comes with an connected smartphone app, which is the place where the owner enters the type of plants he is growing in his high-tech indoor garden. Along the way, the app will routinely ask you to check on the plants and answer some questions, so it can monitor the progress on the garden and adjust conditions to maximize growth.

Niwa is one example of the current trend of “in-home” farming which aims to bring accessible, low maintenance farming/growing technology to households. Nonetheless, as someone who had similar technology, I fear that the quality of the end-products is a bit over estimated.
Nonetheless, Niwa could be great educational tool for schools and other institutes, as they state on their website.